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Wearing face masks (alongside physical distancing) provides some protection against infection from COVID-19. Face masks can also change how people communicate and subsequently affect speech signal quality. This study investigated how three common face mask types (N95, surgical, and cloth) affected acoustic analysis of speech and perceived intelligibility in healthy subjects. Acoustic measures of timing, frequency, perturbation, and power spectral density were measured. Speech intelligibility and word and sentence accuracy were also examined using the Assessment of Intelligibility of Dysarthric Speech. Mask type impacted the power distribution in frequencies above 3 kHz for the N95 mask, and above 5 kHz in surgical and cloth masks. Measures of timing and spectral tilt mainly differed with N95 mask use. Cepstral and harmonics to noise ratios remained unchanged across mask type. No differences were observed across conditions for word or sentence intelligibility measures; however, accuracy of word and sentence translations were affected by all masks. Data presented in this study show that face masks change the speech signal, but some specific acoustic features remain largely unaffected (e.g., measures of voice quality) irrespective of mask type. Outcomes have bearing on how future speech studies are run when personal protective equipment is worn.

PurposeThis paper aims to assess the marginal value of several types of open space in a single family residential market. It also aims to test the hypothesis that locating closer to open spaces might be a substitute for the size of a homeowner's own yard.Design/methodology/approachUsing data from Wake County, North Carolina in the US hedonic modeling is used to estimate the house price as a function of the quantities of a property's characteristics, including the property's access to different types of open spaces, property structural features, public services, disamenity features, neighborhood socio‐economic characteristics, and accessibility measures.FindingsThe findings were that housing prices increase with a property's proximity to certain types of open land uses, and that the size of those nearby open spaces also impacts home price. More importantly, the findings concluded that the value of being adjacent to public open spaces, having more public open spaces within walking distance of the property, and being closer to the nearest open space is greater for properties with smaller private yards.Originality/valueThis paper explicitly tests the relationship between yard size and the proximity value of various types of open spaces. The paper also discusses the implications of the research findings for land use planning and smart growth development.